So just had my new sounder installed, Furuno FCV-628 and wanted to take her out for a spin. Was getting a huge amount of interference and clutter which was weird as I had optimal settings punched in. Realised after a while in that I still had my Lowrance unit on (now using for maps) and the other transistor was likely the issue. Switched off sonar and sure enough got a crystal clear picture. Highly impressed with the Furuno unit, easy to use, menu is a breeze to work with and the definition in comparison to my Lowrance unit is like comparing chalk and cheese. Also was able to sound at 20-25 knots which could not do previously. Pretty happy with the purchase

Anyway on to the report. You don't get much better mornings on the bay that yesterday, weather was perfect. Got to the ricketts ramp at 4.30 and the car park was full. Reckon 3.30 is the go from now on. Water was crystal clear and minimal wind so decided to head wider than previous trips after fishing in close with the huge amount of wind we've had. The whole 17m - 18m line of black rock was like bloody burke st. Tried sounding around away from the boats but couldn't find anything, so came closer to the cluster f* and found some marks straight away so with sunset pressing decided to anchor with the other 200 boats.

Was just about to put the third rod in the holder when it buckled over. Landed this fish that was smack on 60cm:

Interestingly, the fish was gut hooked on a 6/0 circle, so yeah so much for lip hooking? Pretty fat fish though so probably woofed it down faster than Ian Hewitson.

Thought we might be onto a hot bite but things went completely dead after that. Dad was disappointed not to snag a fish but always next time!

Really want to get away from the boats next time and find my own patch of fish.

Anyway for what it's worth, here are my observations so far this season:

Seen reports of big bags of fish, but I've found despite sounding up good clusters fish are still biting sporadically picking up 1-2 fish in a session. The bite window seems to be extremely short and I mean like 20 minutes around sunrise/sunset. I've been finding the fishing better late a night.

Give smaller baits a shot. I haven't taken one fish on a whole fish bait yet. I think given the fish are still at times finicky, smaller baits seem to be working for me. Silver whiting heads pinned on circle, half squid heads and silver whiting tail end only have take all fish so far. Also I just find pillies a pain in the ass.

Try a berley pot a go suspended above the bottom. I think at the moment with cubing, the fish are filling up and not taking baits. I've been using chook pellets/tuna oil in berley pot, enough scent to get them in the area but still hungry enough to take a bait. Had a better strike rate with this method at the moment.

Great report.i run a foruno 585 and used to run a navman 6600 which used a 50/200 hz tx and used to interfere with the foruno blue dots across the screen, this didn't bother me due I only used the navman as a chart plotter and back up to the foruno. I have since replaced the navman with an a98 raymarine it came with a chirp downvision tx which does not interfere with the foruno. I am not a fan of whole baits I prefer either heads or tails with the other half cut off on an angle to allow the guts to ooze out. I must carry every berley device out there the secret weapon to put berley loose directly under the boat berley pot suspended off the bottom the rocking of the boats helps to disperse whats in it and a bag to disperse berley logs on the surface when shark fishing. Nice snapper

I really appreciate these posts...really entertaining & comprehensive read, followed by more good tips by other posters. I've learnt more from this this site than any other.Do you guru's have any good tips on how to present a pilchard on the line (seems everyone has a different technique)

I was out a few days before you and we landed 3 decent size snapper (one 75cm) all on whole pilchards and silver whitings. We had good bites on probably another 4... So it could have just been that they were finicky at the time.

We also used a combination of pellets and cubed pilchards. I know the pilchards worked because one of the fish had about 4 cubes in his guts when I cut it open.......

Mattblack wrote:I really appreciate these posts...really entertaining & comprehensive read, followed by more good tips by other posters. I've learnt more from this this site than any other.Do you guru's have any good tips on how to present a pilchard on the line (seems everyone has a different technique)